Monday, May 25, 2015

For years I've carried a camera wherever I go and have thousands of photos of people, places, and things. And I've been trying to figure out how to combine my love of photography and my love of collage without the result looking like a scrapbook page. Perhaps I'm finally onto something that will work for me.

This started with the photo of a warehouse stencil, Machine Work and Painting. I added maps, an old car, a collection of hands taken in a favorite store, a machine part from who knows where, and a row of big steel tubes, plus bright color, black and white, painted paper, and the drawn line. All combined on a 12x12" board.

The best thing about this for me is that this piece pulled me up out of a fallow time when I simply didn't want to work. I've been sewing and gardening, cooking and reading, but no drawing, no painting, no collage. It was starting to bother me even though I knew it was all related to hanging the show in Hillsboro and needing a new focus. This idea came at just the right time, thank you, Jesus.

I've been accepted into the Portland Open Studios Tour the second and third weekend in October and now that I have a new idea and a new goal of making new work for the tour I'm ready to spend lots of days in the studio. A dear friend gifted me with several dozen cradled panels and another friend cut me lots of flat panels so I know what sizes and surfaces I'll be working on. The next step is to dig out a bunch of photos from the boxes stacked in the corner and see what works with what.

I spent a lot of time in Hong Kong in the 80s and photos from those trips will make some interesting collages, as will photos from various road trips and vacations.

Saturday, May 09, 2015

I've just added a PAGE to my blog titled Hillsboro Exhibit. See it at the top, right under the title, One A Day. I'm gradually adding images of all the paintings that are in the Hillsboro show, along with sizes and prices.

I'm so grateful to my helpers Constance Adams and Jill Getzendaner (my daughter) who made it possible to hang the show in one long afternoon. The library has a slick professional hanging system of wires and hooks but still, it was a chore. I came away absolutely convinced of the the worth of paying a hefty commission to a gallery which takes on the chore of hanging your work and putting it before qualified buyers. The library doesn't do all that; I do, if it's to be done.

The reception is next Saturday, May 16, from 2-4 and I hope to see many of you there, but you can go see the work anytime the library is open during the months of May and June. If you'd like me to meet you there, just call or email.

I had 39 pieces from which to choose and we wound up with 32. I was quite disappointed to get home and find 4 paintings under some towels in my front seat, 3 of which I really wanted in the show, including the one I used for my show card. And later I realized that I didn't make it home with my little bag of tools. I'll bet I left it sitting in the parking lot when I packed up the boxes to go home. Oh well, someone else now has a handy awl, level, and screwdriver. When you get old you forget things.

Art Tip: Removing acrylic from hands

Use ordinary hand sanitizer to quickly remove acrylic paint and medium from your hands. The alcohol in the sanitizer dissolves the acrylic. Wipe well with a paper towel and then wash with soap and water.

Art Tip: brush cleaning

As I work with acrylic medium for glue or with acrylic paints I stand my brushes in a bucket of water on my work table and give them a soap and water cleanup every day or so. But eventually my brushes get gunky and sometimes I forget to clean them. That's when I clean them with Murphy's Oil Soap. I keep an inch of MOS mixed 1:1 with water in a tall plastic tub (Feta from Costco) and put caked brushes in that solution overnight. By the next day the soap has softened the brush and with a bit of elbow grease I can get the brushes back to useable. This also works for brushes used with oil paint. I gave up using oils but wanted to save those good brushes and Murphy's Oil Soap came to the rescue. Get it at the grocery store.